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Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

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Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#241

Post by got2surf »

timfrietas wrote: post #58

Tough love: You've done too much reading on the subject already and will learn nothing from reading even more by indulging yourself in the comments here. And although good teams can find good ideas they have to "try and fail" at things, not just "consider and not try" things. I'm not sure how long you've been at this and which ideas you have considered and rejected and for what reasons, but if it has been longer than…

Great point - in every product that you've dismissed, there's a lesson to be learned. Particularly for commodotized products - if there is a way to do it cheaply, what is it? What new technology enables companies to offer their services for so cheap, and where else can you leverage that tech?

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#243

Post by dagss »

sauwan wrote: post #107

Here's my idea. All I ask for is a free one if you use it. A drone fence. Hear me out. Problem: Fencing is FUCKING expensive. For many people who want to keep animals out (garden, animals pooping in the sandbox) buying a fence is really cost prohibitive. Plus they don't always work anyways. Solution: Self driving drones with IR cameras in specific locations. Place a camera or two in strategic locations, and have a dr…

In Norway we have sheep roaming the mountains in summer....and wolves. How many wolves to kill is a huge political issue. Government reimburses sheep killed by wolves.

Building fences around the areas is basically impossible. But I hope some day drone-shepherds can do the job.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#244

Post by rsp1984 »

Let me humbly offer my advice, based on my last 10 years in startups (with 2 years interruption working for big G):

1. Figure out what kind of company you want to build and which spaces you feel most comfortable with. B2C or B2B? Software? Saas? Hardware? Services? How long would you like to be involved? 2 years? 5 years? 15 years? Any different combination will require a different approach. Find alignment on these points with your co-founders early.

2. Align yourself with larger tech trends and figure out which ones you actually believe in. As a reader of HN (or your favorite tech blogs) you should have a good idea about the trends and hypes du jour. Pay special attention to where BigTechCo is allocating resources. Proper alignment with a larger trend (+ the right timing) is a major success factor in startups (but way too often gets lost in the discussion noise).

3. Figure out if there's an area within a general trend you believe in where you can get one step ahead of everybody else (e.g. because of skills/expertise/connections of team members).

4. Within that area, start talking to people.

5. If that sequence doesn't yield any good results, start over. Only commit to an idea if everyone has a great gut feeling about it. If your gut tells you no then don't do it.

Happy to talk more.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#245

Post by Dnguyen »

Here's my two cents, hopefully I can make a dollar back. I've been working on an web app to let small businesses create/design logos. My idea is to build a bot that translate requests in natural language to actions. For example, enlarge the icon by 5 percent. Or move the text a little to the left. Basically I want to cut down the time and cost of making minor changes that clients go through with designers over emails. Good match for your #4.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#250

Post by oelmekki »

Qwertious wrote: post #190
ChuckMcM wrote: post #170

My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems. Look for the pain, and to do that talk to people. The challenge will be that most people accommodate the pain in order to get something done, but they don't like it. A recent pain point I came across was that 501.c(3) organizations are good at organizing but often poor at "the Internet". That suggested that if you talked to a half dozen…

>My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems. I concur, and add that HN could really help OP by complaining about random stuff here. Just complain about the first thing that comes to mind that's been bugging you, OP will really appreciate it!

Hah, good point. I don't like to rant usually, but this is for the good cause.

I'm annoyed I feel the internet is turning more and more hateful.

I'm annoyed writing and fixing tests takes half of my time when writing code.

I'm annoyed business people only see the difference of salary asked and not what experience brings when having to choose between a junior dev and a senior one.

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